This is my third feature on headstock ergonomics - following on from my 2016 original, and 2018 follow-up. On this occasion the catalyst for this article was the recent Birmingham Guitar Show - where I liked a lot of the body shapes I saw on display, but was put off by their unergonomic or in fact actually rather ugly headstocks.

Creating an aesthetically beautiful but distinct headstock shape is an incredible difficult task these days - and lots of brands essentially ’fail’ in that area - ...

2018 has been a pretty decent year for new guitar releases - with genuinely something exceptional for near enough every variety. Fender released the really cool alternative range of Parallel Universe guitars - including the above Troublemaker Telecaster. And Gibson released the perfectly packaged Les Paul Junior Tribute.

We also saw Ibanez, Music Man and PRS further build on their quality reputations - while Music Man concentrated more on its Sterling diffusion range as it was so busy ...

Even though my favourite body shape is still the Strat or S-Style Doublecut format, I do still quite like most variations on that theme - including the sharp pointed ’devil’s horns’ of the Gibson SG shape - as most famously rocked by AC/DC’s Angus Young.

These are classically all-Mahogany sort of PAF humbucker affairs with typically Set-Neck 24 and three-quarter inch scale length, and classically Rosewood or Ebony Fretboards. Preferred control layout here also ...

It should be evident by now that my preferred style of guitar is the doublecut S-type, with relatively few exceptions. My preferred pickups are humbuckers - ideally with some well-defined grunt, and I am very fussy about fretboards (Rosewood / Ebony) and headstock shape. As any guitar aficionado does, I have a rolling wishlist of guitars I desire to acquire - I’m not setting up shop, so the chance of me getting all, or even a significant number of these are slim to none. This is more of a...

So I am increasingly thinking my next guitar will be a singlecut style one - the usual mahogany body + mahogany neck, Rosewood or Ebony Board, usually 4 control dials and (at least) two humbuckers etc. - for some deep and rich rock sounds. Up until now my preference has been for doublecut S-style guitars, and the PRS CE and Holcombe SE I already have quite adequately represent that genre for now.

You may recall I was considering a Gibson Les Paul Standard HP for a while - but on ...

A while back I did a post about 10 cool guitars that were very much to my liking. This follow-up post is kind of more of the same, but focuses on mainly smaller / less well known makers. Most of these are custom shops in the truest sense of the word - building guitars to order, possibly with the exception of Mayones which is Poland’s leading guitar manufacturer and more mainstream really. For most of these there is only the occasional instrument found in the wild - on specialist retailer&...